Caso1

The "New" Organization: Taking Action in an Era of
Organizational Transformation
From: Module 1 A-
. MANAGING FOR THE FUTURE: ORGANIZATIONAL BEHA VIOR
AND PROCESSES
(South-Western CollegePublishing, 3rd edition, 2005)
Deborah Ancona Tom Kochan
John Van Maanen Eleanor Westney

Class note changing organizacional models
In the 1990s, a rapidly growing stream of articles in the businesspress proclaimed that a major organizational transformation was taking place in the United States. The
organization of the 21st century was already emerging, according to these writers, and it wasradically different from what had gone before: it was customer-focused, team-based,
networked in alliances with suppliers, customers, and even competitors, flat, flexible and innovative, diverse, andglobal. Its workforce was empowered and committed; its managers acted as coaches, not bosses; it was a "learning organization," constantly striving to improve and innovate. The rapid expansion of theInternet in the late 1990s, a development not foreseen when the new model first developed, only reinforced these trends. Organization theorists, some of whom had long predicted that the shift to the"knowledge-based society" would bring about a major change in organizations, provided a more academic perspective on the new era of the "post-modem," "post-bureaucratic," "post-Fordist" organization (seefor example Clegg, 1990; Heckscher and Donnellon, 1994; Kaysen, 1996; Capelli et al, 1997; Powell 2001).
U.S. corporations were not the only organizations to respond to the drumbeat of organizationalchange. The U.S. administration picked up the theme of organizational transformation, vowing to "re-invent" government to make it leaner, more responsive, and more flexible. Government organizationsfrom the postal service to the Internal Revenue Service organized teams and·task forces, moved to more flexible labo:r practices, and looked to the corporate world for models of effective new...